“Fatphobia is medicine’s status quo.” This essential read in Pipe Wrench’s Fat Issue explores the history of medical fatphobia. When you see a fat person, you associate them with ob*sity. What you believe about ob*sity and have internalized from health authorities—its causes, symptoms, consequences, treatment, and more—then guide your interaction with that fat person. You […]
Fat
The Hate Is Coming From Inside the House
The claws of diet culture dig in early, and they dig in deep.
Feeding Our Kids, In Fatness and in Health
If struggling parents feed their kids KFC, is it nutritional neglect or love?
You Can’t Cut Out the Pain
“[E]verything has changed, but everything is exactly the same.”
Fashion For Everyone, Where “Everyone” Means “Thin People”
Fat ladies are bad optics.
Why Aren’t Fashion ‘Disruptors’ Serving Plus-Size Customers?
Apparently making pants for fat people is so radically difficult from making pants for thin people that it will take years of additional R&D.
“No Fatties”: When Health Care Hurts
A fat person walking into a doctor’s office can expect lectures, condescension, and misdiagnoses from a medical culture that chalks every health issue up to weight.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being Lighter
Colin Gillis is happy with most of the changes a massive weight change have brought, but finds unexpectedness sadness and loss, too.
On Being Smaller
Colin Gillis finds both joy and an unexpected sadness after losing one-third of his body weight.
Diet Is a Four-Letter Word
Taffy Brodesser-Akner explores America’s history of obsession with thinness and her own struggles with her body.